In ancient Greece, since the 5th century, a precursor of the crossbow, the Gastraphetes was developed. In the Lower Rhine, archaeologists found in a gravel pit metal remains of a Roman torso with a crossbow bolt, from the time of the birth of Christ. Remnants of similar weapons have already been discovered in Spain and Iraq. A military use of the crossbow by Roman soldiers is therefore probable. The Romans called these weapons Ballistae. You can check out crossbow reviews for hunting. If you’re going to go hunting, crossbow broadheads would also be a good idea!

But throughout those years, the use of a crossbow as a weapon or even hunting tool has fallen out of practice. Modern weapons such as rifles, are generally more reliable and provide a lot more power compared to crossbows. But that is not to say that crossbows have been left behind in the technological race. There have been a lot of new developments in the technology used for crossbows as well!

There are a few things that you should know about new crossbow technologies that are being developed. You can look forward to these technological changes if you are an owner of crossbows or are a big fan of archery in general.

Telescopic sights

There are new telescopic sights that are being developed for crossbows. These kinds of sights allow the user of the crossbow to be more accurate with their weapon. One of the main reasons why these sights are more accurate is that they use a laser to find the range and distance of the shot that needs to be taken. In the past, a hunter would have to do a lot of guesswork in order to take a long to medium range shot. But using these new laser telescopic sights, a hunter would be able to know the exact distance of the shot that they need to take. This allows them to generally fire a more accurate shot on the target animal.

The users of these crossbows can even program in the details, such as the weight and length of their crossbow bolts. And the rangefinder would automatically calculate the bolt drop speed and even show hunters where they should aim their bolt if they want to fire off the most accurate shot.

Lighter, more durable and stronger

Crossbows used to be very big and heavy, due to the size of the arms. The arms of the crossbow are the elastic elements of the bow that accumulate the mechanical energy of the weapon produced during the tension for the subsequent shot. The shoulders are fastened directly to the bed, on powerful crossbows – to the box through the metal part of the bow. The designs of crossbow bows are divided into traditional and block designs. Most of the traditional and block designs of crossbows were extremely heavy and hard to carry around. They were also rather hard to push back due to the relative inflexibility of these arms. The crossbow arms needed to be heavy and dense because they had to be durable enough to hold all of the tension force from pulling back the bowstring.

But with recent developments in the materials used for the crossbow, that is no longer the case. Crossbows are now much skinnier, making them much easier to carry around. They are not even as big anymore since these crossbows are made to be shorter. So overall, with the size reduction of crossbows, they are even much easier to handle.

It used to be very hard to sight a wide and heavy crossbow whenever you were hunting in a tree line. But since crossbows are much lighter and narrower, hunters can easily get up and aim their crossbow even in a densely forested area. The new changes to crossbows have made them more shooter-friendly. These crossbows are not any weaker though. Some crossbows can shoot a bolt that has got a power and speed of 400 feet per second. And these crossbows also have got an effective range of at least a hundred yards! Newer crossbows may be much smaller and easier to carry around, but they are every bit as powerful if even more so compared to traditional crossbows.

Aiming and hunting technology aids

There is also another high-tech gadget that can be used in conjunction with crossbow hunting. If the hunter wants to stay downwind of their prey, they can use a wind detector, which can be attached to their crossbow. The wind detector can accurately tell which way the wind is blowing, no matter how light the breeze may be. And since the hunter knows exactly which direction they should be facing, they can ensure that they will remain in a position where their quarry cannot smell them.